Judged

by E. H. Reinhard

  As the three of us sat and waited, I took in my surroundings. The interior of the station was fairly nondescript. A couple of blue-carpeted shadow boxes protruded from the white cinder-block walls. One contained missing persons—the other looked to be announcements of community events.

  Within a couple minutes, the security door off to the right of the woman behind the front glass buzzed, and a husky man in a black suit emerged from the doorway and walked toward us. He looked the better part of fifty years old, with short buzzed gray hair and a graying mustache—no beard.

  “I’m Lieutenant Alan Peterson. So which one of you is Harrington?” he asked.

  “That would be me,” Harrington said. He stood and shook the lieutenant’s hand. Harrington pointed to Beth and me. “These are Agents Rawlings and Harper.”

  I shook the lieutenant’s hand. “Agent Hank Rawlings,” I said.

  Beth shook his hand next. “Beth Harper,” she said.

  “Well, good to meet you guys. I may have something for you to look into. I had to call my wife to bring in some old notes that I had at the house, things from my Miami Dade days.” He started toward the security door that, I assumed, led back into the station itself. The lieutenant waved for us to follow over his shoulder. “Why don’t you guys follow me to my office, and we can run through it.”

  The woman at the front buzzed us through, and we followed Lieutenant Peterson through the bullpen area toward a glass office at the back-right corner of the room. We entered, and he closed the door at his back. I took the office in. It looked pretty standard fare for a lieutenant—some file boxes in disarray, some awards and photos on shelves, a couple stacks of paperwork taking up desk space, and a wilting plant by the single window that looked out onto a parking lot in the back of the building.

  Lieutenant Peterson rounded his desk and paused. “Damn, only two guest chairs,” he said. “Let me go and grab another.”

  “It’s fine. I can stand,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well, this won’t take all that long either way.” The lieutenant took a seat at his desk. “I guess first, a little background is probably in order. The accident that took Carrie Baker’s life was in our jurisdiction while I was at Miami Dade. I was a detective over there when this all occurred. It was right before I came over here and grabbed the empty sergeant position.”

  “Were you on scene?” Beth asked.

  He shook his head. “No. I heard about it around the station the next day, though. Well, a few weeks after this occurred, I get a call put through to my desk from someone wanting to talk about a crime. The guy wouldn’t give me his name over the phone and wouldn’t come in to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. He tells me he wants to meet me at a coffee shop a few miles from there. I tell the guy if he’d like to report a crime, that we have a specific number and process for doing such. He goes on to tell me that someone was murdered—he has information but is only willing to deal with a detective face to face. There was something about the way he talked that I didn’t think he was completely full of it. So I grab my partner, and we go to meet with the guy.”

  “Wendell, presumably,” I said.

  “Right. So we get to the coffee shop, and he says, ‘My sister was killed by someone running her off the road a few weeks back.’ This was when we got his identity, as well as the so-called murder victim’s identity. So we have a little back and forth with the guy about the fact that nothing showed another vehicle was involved and the fact that he was intoxicated at the time, so he may have been mistaken. He’s not having any of it. He takes a folder from his lap and starts going down a list of people who own similar vehicles as the one he saw. He’s going name by name down the list and even has little notes on what he thinks the chances of it being this person or the next person are.”

  “Hmm,” Beth said. “So he was putting in some footwork?”

  “Right. He seemed to think that he had it narrowed down to seven or eight possible suspects. He wanted us to check into each and see where they were at that evening.”

  “Did you?” Harrington asked.

  “Well, my partner and I had a discussion about it, him thinking it was a waste of our time, and me almost feeling sorry for the guy and figuring it would maybe take a day of my life to see what I could do for him. You know, who knows, maybe this guy was on to something?”

  “So what did you guys do?” I asked.

  “My partner washed his hands of it, but I made a couple of phone calls. Every one of the names was accounted for and not in the area the evening this happened. So I got in touch with Wendell, let him know that I checked into it but we didn’t have any luck.”

  “How did he take it?” I asked.

  “Hard to tell. He just said that we’d be in touch, which I didn’t really know what that meant at the time. Well, a week later, the front desk calls back to me and tells me that I have a visitor at the front. I walk up there, and it’s Wendell with another list of possible suspects. Reluctantly, I took the list from him and, once again, looked into the names, to no avail.”

  “I’m guessing this story ends with him continuing to come into the station, and after a while, you’ve had enough of looking into it and chasing after ghosts,” I said.

  “Pretty much. He came another four or five times before I told him that the department couldn’t keep doing this. I informed him that I took into looking into these people off the clock the prior two times, and we just couldn’t do it anymore. He went on and on about how he really found the guy this time and so forth. He begged and pleaded. So I took the guy’s name and ran him in the system. I even went and met with the guy. He was a stay-at-home dad who had some executive wife. They had some fancy house, fancy cars. His wife vouched for him the night that this supposedly happened—they were at some fundraiser, and the kids were at home with a sitter. The guy gave me about twenty people’s names that would corroborate his story. It just wasn’t the guy. After I told Wendell this, he went into a bit of a tirade on the phone at me, insisting that it was. I told him that I was sorry, assured him that this wasn’t the man and I could spend no more time doing this. He tried contacting me again a number of times, but I never took his calls.”

  I sat quietly for a moment, thinking about the lieutenant’s story. Wendell could very well go after the guy that he thought was responsible. Another thought bubbled up—he could go after the lieutenant for wronging him or not doing enough.

  “When was the last time you saw Wendell?” I asked.

  “Two years or so.”

  “Do you still have the name of the guy he was certain that it was?” Harrington asked.

  “Yeah, that’s why I had my wife bring me my old notes. It’s right here.”

  Lieutenant Peterson flipped open a small notepad lying on his desk and ripped out the page. He passed it to Harrington, who had a look and passed it over to me. I stared at the sheet. The guy’s name was Kenneth Ridley.

  “Phone number?” I asked.

  “I never had one for him. I made a house call. The place was in Cooper City if memory serves.”

  “Where’s that from here?” Beth asked.

  “Ten miles or so southeast,” Peterson said. “Hold on, let me pull up the guy’s name on my computer. I’ll be able to get you the address, provided he’s still in the same place.” The lieutenant clicked a few keys on his desktop computer and squinted at the screen. “Here we go.”

  Peterson reached toward me for the piece of paper with the name on it. I passed it to him, and he jotted the address down and handed it back.

  Beth turned to me. “Do we want to head there right away?”

  I pulled up the address on my phone and waited for the map to bring up the location in relation to us. “Yeah, we’ll need to get someone from local law enforcement notified as well. I want someone sitting on this guy’s house and him and his family out of it. At least for a few days. If he’s a potential victim, I don�
�t want him and his family to be sitting ducks and unaware they may be targets.”

  “If you guys are going there now, I can make a call to the local PD and have them get someone to meet you out there,” Peterson said.

  “Appreciate that,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “That’s about it, I guess. I hope it helps you track Wendell down before he gets to anyone else.”

  The thought that the lieutenant might be a potential target kept bouncing around in my head. While I knew from my experience in law enforcement that officers never took the thought of threats from people too seriously, I at least needed to lay it on the table. “Um, you might want to have someone from your patrol unit here follow you around for a while as a precautionary measure,” I said.

  Lieutenant Peterson furrowed his brows. “Why?”

  “Just precautionary,” I said. “Hell, we don’t know what’s going on in this guy’s head. There’s a chance that you may be one of his targets. I’m just saying that it’s better to be prepared.”

  Lieutenant Peterson scoffed. “I’ve been in law enforcement a long time. I can handle myself. Plus, I went above and beyond for this guy.”

  “And if he doesn’t see it that way?” I asked.

  Peterson was quiet for a moment. “Do you really think that?”

  “No way to know for certain. It was just a thought,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it, but it was in my head.”

  “But, I mean, why?” Peterson’s face scrunched, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I tried helping this guy. More than anyone else.” His annoyance at my question seemed to be escalating.

  I held my palms out toward him. “Like I said, it’s just a thought, and we don’t know one way or another. Now, if you told us that you kept seeing a silver Ford Transit Connect wheelchair van everywhere you went, it would be more than a thought.”

  Peterson let out a long breath. “Yeah, I saw the BOLO for that vehicle and caught something about it on the news. Can’t say that there has been a van following me.”

  “Okay, well, we appreciate you meeting with us,” I said. “We’re going to head over to this guy’s house now if you want to make that call to the local PD there.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Maybe ask if they have a vehicle they can station on the place as well,” I said.

  He agreed.

  Beth, Harrington, and I shook the lieutenant’s hand and stood to leave. I let Harrington and Beth walk from the lieutenant’s office and paused at the door.

  I looked back at the lieutenant, who was standing from his chair and walking toward me. “Peterson, I wasn’t trying to get you spun up with the warning. I used to be a homicide sergeant in Tampa. We had a couple of cases that turned personal and pretty grim. You just never know what these assholes are going to do. Just be safe,” I said.

  He nodded and held out his hand for another handshake, which I gave.

  “I know. It just caught me a little off guard,” Peterson said. “I appreciate the concern—my wife would as well. I’ll watch my ass. You guys go catch this guy.”

  I nodded and left his office to catch up with Harrington and Beth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tim walked back into the house from the garage, his hands dirty from working on Ridley’s vehicle. He glanced over at the thin, dark-haired forty-some-year-old man tied to the backed barstool in the middle of the kitchen. Ridley ripped back and forth at the straps that bound him. The barstool rocked on its metal legs.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Tim said. “Careful, though. You might fall over doing that.”

  Ridley stopped wriggling against his restraints. “Who the hell are you? What is this?” he asked.

  “Two questions that you’re about to get the answers to. I think it will become more clear for you in a second here.”

  “Look, whatever you want, just take it.”

  “Why is it that everyone thinks I want to rob them? I have no interest in your possessions,” Tim said.

  Ridley was quiet for a moment. “Then what the hell are you doing in my house?”

  “Technically, it’s not your house. You’re just a renter.”

  “Whatever. What are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “To talk,” Tim said. He approached Ridley and stood before him. “Kenny, my name is Tim Wendell. You killed my sister. I’m here to get your confession.”

  “What?” Ridley asked. “Killed your sister? I’ve never killed anyone.”

  Tim crossed his arms and stared at the wound on Ridley’s head. Blood had wet the side of Ridley’s face, where Tim had pistol whipped him when he returned home from work.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

  “Yeah, I can give you a little refresher. See the story goes like this. I met my sister for dinner in Fort Lauderdale. She had just closed a case with a client and received a nice payment. She wanted to buy dinner, so I drove up to meet her. It was just a little celebration, a couple of drinks and some friends. My sister had been a detective, was blackballed at the department, and then decided to pull the plug and start her own private investigative firm. She even wanted me to work for her. See, my sister and I were always close. Our mother passed away when we were young, so we leaned on each other quite a bit. Anyway, I followed her on the freeway, heading back toward our houses. I lived near Coral Gables at the time. I had a nice girlfriend that I lived with. My sister lived close to Kendell. Anyway, I was following my sister down the right-most lane on the freeway. You were driving behind us, fast and swerving all over the road from the looks of your headlights. Well, you passed me on the left and then veered back into the right lane. My sister swerved right to avoid you hitting her, crashed into the base of a freeway sign, and died. You kept driving.”

  “I’ve heard this story before,” Ridley said. “A couple years ago, from a cop. It never happened. He checked out where I was and what I was doing. I wasn’t even in the area. I have countless people that can confirm it.”

  Tim clenched his fists, and his knuckles went white. He reached out and grabbed Ridley by the chin and squeezed his face. “I know it was you. You can’t lie to me. You were probably drunk, just like you are every day. Your drinking is what caused the split between you and your wife. See, I know all about you. Either way, this is not about trying to convince me of your innocence. This is about you confessing.”

  “I’m not confessing to shit,” Ridley said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “But you did. We both know it.” Tim walked into the kitchen and dug through the drawers until he found a scratch pad and a pencil. He walked them both back to Ridley and placed them in his hands. While Tim had bound Ridley to the barstool and taped his wrists together, he’d still be able to write the confession.

  “Write what you did,” Tim instructed.

  Ridley brushed both items from his lap to the tile floor of his kitchen. “I told you I’m not confessing to anything that I didn’t do.”

  “Write it!” Tim yelled.

  “I won’t.”

  Tim grabbed Ridley by the throat and squeezed with every inch of muscle in his hand and forearm. “You’re going to write what you did to her.”

  Ridley tried pulling away and bucking against the restraints—it did no good. He rocked to one side, spilling himself, tied to the barstool, onto the floor. While the motion might have broken Tim’s grasp from Ridley’s throat, it wasn’t without consequences. As Ridley fell to the ground, his head smacked off the tile with an audible crack. Tim watched briefly as blood pooled under Ridley’s head. Tim turned his back on him, walked to the kitchen, and scooped up the items he’d set aside earlier. Then he walked back to Ridley, placed the items he’d grabbed on the floor, and sat Ridley back up on the barstool. Ridley groaned in pain.

  Tim let out a long breath. “You know, the hell with it. I know you did it, and I’m not going to sit here all afternoon just to get you to write it down. We’r
e just going to get this over with. I’ve been waiting a long time to deal with you, and I still have someone else to meet with today. I guess you could say that you don’t have much time.”

  “Get what over with?” Ridley asked.

  Tim reached down and picked up the funnel he had on the floor. He held it before Ridley. “Open your mouth,” Tim said.

  Ridley clenched his jaw.

  “Two options, and I’m fine with either. Option one: you open your mouth voluntarily, and I stick in this funnel. Option two, I’ll break your damn teeth out of your head and force it in. Tick tock. Make a decision.”

  Ridley kept his jaw clenched. Tim could see his jaw muscles flexing.

  “Suit yourself.” Tim dropped the blue plastic funnel to the floor and reached behind his back. He took his pistol from his waistline, turned it in his hand, and held it by the barrel. “I’m guessing that this is going to hurt.”

  Ridley’s eyes grew wide when Tim brought the gun back to swing it toward his teeth. “Wait!” Ridley yelled.

  “Too late,” Tim said. He swung the butt of the pistol into Ridley’s mouth. The gun hit with a slap and a crunch. Ridley yanked his head back, only for it to be straightened by Tim grabbing him by the back of the head. Tim swung the gun three more times. The last time, the butt of the pistol hit with not much more than a thudding squish. Blood poured from Ridley’s mouth. Chips of teeth stuck in the blood, rolling down Ridley’s chin. His lips were jagged and cut, chunks of flesh hanging. He gurgled some words that Tim couldn’t make out through all the blood in his mouth.

  “Funnel time,” Tim said.

  He jammed the blood-covered pistol back into his waistband and reached down. He scooped up the funnel and jammed it into Ridley’s bloody mouth. With his left hand, he held it in against Ridley’s protests while he reached down again with his right.