Ochoa oinked at me.
“Screw you,” I said out loud. Shit, I looked around to see if anyone heard me.
I had to get Ochoa under control.
“Instead of stuffing your face, why don’t you go get your flowers and package?” Ochoa scolded me.
Ah, my package. I wondered what Thomas had bought me other than flowers. Probably a huge bottle of pain relievers.
The flowers were a small token, nothing overly gaudy, thank goodness. Just three gerber daisies, and a note that said, “Lovely dinner, feel better soon.”
The package wasn’t from Thomas. It was a plain white #10 mailing envelope with my name on it, and the address of the police station.
“It was dropped through the slot late last night,” the receptionist said. “Not a smart thing to do in this day and age. But I think it’s just a flash drive or something. Maybe pictures.” When she looked up at me, she asked, “What happened to your face?”
I was smart enough not to reach up and touch it this time. “Nothing interesting.”
She looked miffed that I wasn’t giving her any office gossip.
I wasn’t expecting anything from anyone. And the receptionist was correct. With security, not smart.
“Who dropped it?”
“Security tapes show a person, looks like a chick, in a hoodie. Not trying to hide herself, but not wanting to be recognized either. She had a big ass.” With the Latina accent, the last sentence was funny.
“Thanks.”
I took my flowers and envelope back to the desk where I’d been doing my work. I refrained from smelling the daisies, because they don’t smell good. They just look pretty, and brighten a room. I smiled and pulled my phone from my pocket to send a thank you text to Thomas as I walked.
We have a “throwaway” laptop for flash drives, and discs that might carry viruses, but we also have ways to check them before frying our computers. I put my flowers down, and went to our IT room to have the flash drive cleaned before I tried to do anything with it. All I needed was to put it into my computer and have every piece of sensitive data spread worldwide. That would be my luck.
Tim Warson was one of several tech guys, and he happened to be working when I entered the office.
Tim was a typical geek: plaid cotton shirt, pocket protector, khaki pants, black leather loafers. Only Tim also had incredible biceps, triceps, calves, quads, hamstring, chest, abs, the works, with tanned skin, and the bleach blonde hair of a surfer. In short, hunk and a half. In his spare time, he was a triathlete. Watching him work was, well, yummy. Every female in the office had become very interested in computers when Tim was hired.
“Tim? Got a few minutes to check this for viruses before I plug it in?” I handed him the drive, and watched his muscles flex as he grabbed it.
He looked at my forehead. “Ouch.”
This was getting old. I was going to pull my hair down over my face. “Not that bad, really.” I pointed at the drive.
“What is it?” His brown eyes twinkled as he looked at me.
“It’s a flash drive.” Duh.
“No, shit. I mean, what’s on it?” He laughed.
“I have no idea, that’s why I’m bringing it to you.”
“Could it be anything sensitive? Something we should have a third person in here for?” Always concerned with the chain of command, and protocol.
“I’m sure it isn’t. It was sitting at the reception desk since late last night.”
Tim did what he did, and handed the drive back to me. “You should be good. It looked clean.”
I lingered, just for the eye candy. “Okay, thanks.” I backed out of the office.
He had to know how good looking he was, but he never acted like it.
Thoughts of Tim’s legs and ass floated through my head, then Ochoa’s words came back to me and ruined everything, but then put things in sharp perspective. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”
If my head hadn’t hurt so bad, I’d have run back to my computer.
Once at the computer, I settled in. I plugged the drive into the USB port, and waited for auto-run to do its thing. When it didn’t, I went to the start menu and ran the program. It was a video.
The video was only a few minutes long, and I watched it five times before I believed what I’d seen.
All this time, the Camera 6 News Channel had footage of the killer. They let us run around for two full days with a killer on the loose. The cameraman had a close up of the killer’s face as he dropped his arms down, turned and walked away. Everyone around him was running and screaming, and he calmly walked away.
It started with chanting, then a single gunshot. The camera, from a crane up high, found the shooter, zoomed in. He watched as the shooter held the snub-nosed .38 out in front of him with two hands, and aimed at his target. He pulled the trigger six times. As he walked calmly away, he tucked the gun inside the jacket he wore. Then the cameraman pivoted his view to Danny. The rest of the video was us, trying to save Danny’s life.
The one thing the cameraman did for us was zoom in, and get a perfectly clear shot of the killer’s face. The kicker: Ochoa was right.
CHAPTER 19
Wyatt stood next to me with his mouth open. He’s not a mouth breather, so I knew he was as stunned as I was.
“Do you think Gloria knew?” I asked.
“No way.”
He’s a good judge of character, so I agreed.
“You ready to do this?” I asked.
“Hell, no.” Wyatt headed toward the parking lot.
“Motive?” I asked.
“The girl. It had to be the girl.” Wyatt shook his head.
“It’s always the stupid girl,” I agreed.
“When will guys learn? There ain’t a chick on Earth that’s worth it.” Again, he shook his head.
Good thing I was walking behind him, because I flipped him off. But I was laughing silently at the same time.
“I ran his background, he’s legal and he was clean.”
“Like no one is ever a first time offender?” Wyatt snapped back at me.
“Fine, whatever.”
“I can’t believe we’ve been chasing our tails on this bullshit, when we could have been doing our jobs. The news channel could have brought this to us right away, and we’d have had our suspect, and had him behind bars in a heartbeat. When was the last time you saw Ricardo?”
That gave me pause. “At Maria’s house, the day after Danny was killed.”
“Did you have any reason to believe he could have killed Danny?”
I thought back on our conversation outside on the driveway. “No, nothing. He said something snide about Danny’s being a lady’s man, but it wasn’t mean, just sort of joking.”
“Jeez, we had him in our hands. We had him.” Wyatt was nearly jogging, and I had to jog to keep up, my head throbbing. I wasn’t going to complain. I felt like I’d dropped the ball.
“He still lives at home with his mother, Yolanda Sanchez. They live across the river, on Eisenhower.” I read off my notes as we jumped in the car and radioed Code 3.
Lights and siren, Wyatt flew through town. Traffic was light, as we’d just missed rush hour. Cars pulled over, as the siren was heard long before they saw the lights. The Explorer caught air as we went through the intersection at Clark and L Street.
He cut both lights and siren about four blocks from our destination, and we crawled to a stop. I ran the plates on the cars at the address listed as Ricardo’s home. One belonged to Yolanda, one to Ricardo, and the last to Gloria Zapatas. Well, well.
Since his car was there, we assumed he’d be there, too, and I radioed for backup, in case we had a runner.
When backup arrived, and the perimeter was covered, Wyatt and I walked up to the front door of the Sanchez house, and I knocked on the door.
Yolanda Sanchez answered. “Officer...? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
I raised my brows. “Really? I tried to save your nephew
’s life, and you can’t remember my name? Odd. I remember your name. Yolanda Sanchez. And your son is Ricardo Sanchez.”
“Yes, but you probably wrote it down. I didn’t write yours. Can I help you?” Her hands trembled on the doorframe.
“I’d like to speak to your son. Is he here?” I’d had enough with being friendly.
Gloria Zapatas walked up. “Hi, Harper. What are you doing here? Come in.” She pulled the door from Yolanda, who grabbed it back.
“No, Gloria, this isn’t your home. You don’t invite strangers in,” Yolanda snapped.
Gloria looked perplexed. “They aren’t strangers, Mama Yollie. They’re trying to find Danny’s killer.”
“Gloria, is Ricardo here?” I asked nicely.
“Sure, he’s in the kitchen, I’ll get him.” Gloria turned to go.
Yolanda grabbed her. “No!”
Just then, Ricardo entered the living room, in full view of the front door, he said, “What’s going…” then he saw us and stopped. He turned and ran.
“What’s going on?” Gloria stood still as Yolanda ran after Ricardo.
Wyatt and I stood in place. We had officers at the back door.
“Gloria, we’re here to arrest Ricardo for the murder of Danny Cabrera.”
Gloria dropped to the floor. “No, Ricardo said he’d take care of me. He’s going to raise the baby. He wouldn’t do this to Danny. They were best friends.”
No tears, just disbelief. Stunned disbelief.
The police brought Ricardo around to the front of the house in cuffs. His mother was in cuffs, too, charged with interfering with police business. Ricardo wouldn’t look at her. Gloria never came out of the house.
Ricardo looked at me, and said, “He took everything. He always took everything. My job, my girl, everything. I just wanted Gloria back. And that day, all those people, it was the perfect chance.”
Yolanda screamed. “Ricky, shut up.”
Wyatt said, “You have the right to remain silent…”
As Wyatt continued to read him his rights, Ricardo continued to tell his story.
“I went to pick him up. We were going to hang out. Just the two of us. We had a rare day off. Then I saw all of the people. It was my chance. No one would ever know it was me, if I did it right. I went back home and got my mom’s gun. When I came back, I stood there, and I pulled the trigger. I was calm. I shot. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And turned and walked away before anyone even knew where to look.”
I stared the smug bastard down. “But we did know where to look.”
“Whatever. You talked to me the next day, and you didn’t even know it was me. I sobbed like a baby. Those were tears of joy. I may have lost my best friend, but he was also my worst enemy. He stole the love of my life right out from under me. I stole her right back. We were going to take the money he’d hidden, and get married. She was mine in the end.”
I got in his face. “Now you can worship her from behind bars.”
“And how are you going to convict me? I’ll deny I ever confessed. And there’s no gun. It’s long gone.” He grinned his crooked toothed grin.
“Well, thanks to all of you thugs and your crying foul, we cops now wear chest cameras.” I lifted mine for him to see. “And Ricardo, you’re on Candid Chest Cam. Not only that, the news cameras have a nice close up of you doing the shooting. You’re screwed.”
All of the bravado dropped out from under Ricardo, and Yolanda’s crying turned into uncontrolled wailing. I just grinned from ear to ear.
When the officers put the Sanchez family in different cars, I looked down the street, and saw Ochoa walking into the darkness. I breathed a sigh of relief.
EPILOGUE
I haven’t seen Ochoa for three months now. And I didn’t have to go back to WCPT to get rid of him. I think I had to prove to myself that I was still worthy of wearing a badge. I’d been on the right track with Danny’s killer, and I’d have gotten to Ricardo eventually, but the videotape from Misty’s sister helped. I never did try to track her down, not wanting to jeopardize her job in any way if I didn’t need to. If we needed the video for a trial, I figured we’d cross that bridge.
As it turned out, Ricardo was a pussy, or maybe just a momma’s boy, who knows? He pled guilty to charges of first degree murder. In reality, I think he was more afraid of Tia Maria than he was of the justice system. Yolanda Sanchez would be doing a few years behind bars, too. She’d been slapped with an array of charges, including helping to destroy evidence in a felony.
Gloria would make a fine mother. I’d been in touch with her on several occasions. In the end, she decided there were others who were more fit to be parents than she was, and had already picked out her baby’s new family. It would be an open adoption, so Gloria would remain in her child’s life. She wanted the boy to know what a special person his biological father was. She was afraid with a closed adoption, he’d never know.
Juan Garcia couldn’t make bail, so he was still a guest in our county jail, awaiting trial on fourteen counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and aggravated rape. I was pretty sure he’d never see freedom again in his lifetime. The evidence on those tapes would leave no doubt in any jury’s mind. Even without the testimony of his victims, the state had a pretty solid case. But with the help of Juan’s former employers, we were able to identify many of the victims, and get nine to press charges. All in all, that was a huge win, even if we’d been looking in the wrong place for a killer, we got a rapist off the streets.
As for Ortega, after nearly three months, the investigation was ongoing, with talk about a grand jury, manslaughter charges, me testifying. Ugh. Then suddenly, nothing. It was over. The case was closed with no charges. In the meantime, Manny had put his house up for sale, because no one was living in it, and his wife had stayed with her mother. He’d been reinstated to his previous position, but he turned it down. He’d asked for a desk job, requested a dispatcher position. Our city didn’t have anything available, so Ortega quit. Gone, just like that. Not even a thank you for standing by him through the ordeal.
Whatever. No one can ever really know what’s going on in another person’s head, can they? We only know what people want us to know. The things they choose to share. And in the end, we don't even know if what they choose to share is even the truth. Maybe it’s just the truth they want us to believe.
I thought about all of this as I sat in a saddle, on the back of a beautiful bay mare named Tess. She had her right hind foot cocked, and her head low. She was bored to death, and I was as happy as I could be. Thomas and I had spent the morning bringing up cattle from the back acreage of his farm, so we could work them in the arena. He’d invited half a dozen or so friends over for a reining practice. I was in awe as I watched his talented friends first run through the dry work (ride the reining patterns, with figure-eights, sliding stops, spins, and backing), then they worked the cows.
Tess had been there, done that, and didn’t even get all that excited when a horse and cow got close. I was situated at the far end of the arena, listening as Thomas explained the expert moves, and mistakes that were made. They all looked expert to me. I couldn’t see any flaws. Shows how much I had to learn. His horse was next to Tess. It was an older gelding named Ralph. His expertise in this equine event made me like him even more.
Notice I didn’t say love? We’d been dating almost three months, and we hadn’t had sex yet. Can you believe it? We’d come close, and I think we were both ready now. We both had some healing of our own to get through. I’d found out a lot about Thomas over the last few months. And I do believe I wouldn’t have learned so much, so soon, if we’d have jumped right in the sack.
Last night, Wyatt had a date. I was happy for him. It tugged at my heart, but I really was happy for him.
###
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OTHER BOOKS BY JAMIE LEE SCOTT
UNCERTAIN SERIES
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GOTCHA DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES
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Textual Relations
Death of a Sales Rep
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Tagged You’re It (a novella)
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Acknowledgements
The Uncertain series wouldn’t even exist if not for Thibodaux, Louisiana Chief of Police, Scott Silverii. Thanks to his generosity, I was able to ride along with his officers, and observe them as they worked. Riding with Rebecca Shaver gave me the idea to write a series that revolves around uniform police officers. I was amazed at responsibilities of these officers, and I wanted to write about the unsung heroes who put their lives on the line so we can sleep safely in our homes each night.
And as always, thanks to my incredible husband, Scot Dierks, for giving me the time to pursue my dreams of writing. I hope I make him proud.
Uncertain Calm (Uncertain Suspense Series Book 1) Page 16