The Hunters Series Box Set

by Glenn Trust

  “Not here, Tank, I promised,” he said reaching into his other jacket pocket and retrieving two pair of shiny chrome handcuffs. The cuffs were of a make common to many police departments. Tossing the handcuffs at the two young men, he said to Darren, “Put a cuff on your right wrist and the other end on his left wrist.” He motioned at Dale.

  When Darren had complied, Ricky told him to put the other cuffs on the opposite wrists so that the two brothers were cuffed together facing each other. Inspecting Darren’s handcuffing technique, he squeezed the ratchets tight on their wrists and nodded, satisfied. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Go? Where we goin’ like this?” Darren realized things were going to get very bad for him and his brother. He looked at Tank. “You gonna let him do this?”

  Shrugging and watching the little drama calmly, Tank replied, “Just business Darren. You shoulda been more careful about who you killed.”

  “I ain’t killed nobody!” Remembering his little brother, he added quickly, “It was a mistake! An accident! No one ever meant for nobody to get killed.”

  “Sometimes you gotta pay. Make a mistake in this business you gotta pay,” Tank said, keeping his gaze on Darren while speaking to Dale. “Your brother shoulda filled you in on that.” He looked at Ricky. “Okay, Ricky. We’re done here. Car stays, money stays, you take them now, just like we agreed, then we’re done. Don’t want to hear no more about it.”

  Ricky nodded. “Okay, move out.”

  “Move? How we gonna move cuffed up like this.” Darren’s bravado in the face of the inevitable was a street thing, a way to keep from falling on the floor and begging for his life while he pissed his pants.

  Leveling the Walther at a spot on the bridge of Darren’s nose, Ricky said, “I don’t care how you move. Just move, now.”

  The bravado melted away, and the two brothers crab-walked sideways to the Camaro. Following them, Ricky walked to the trunk and hit the release on the key fob.

  “Get in.”

  “Naw, man. You can’t mean that.” Darren was grasping, searching for anything that could change the fate he and his brother faced if they got into the car’s trunk.

  Ricky nodded. “I do mean it. Get in, or I will drag your asses out in the alley and shoot you now, no talk no nothing…just you two motherfuckers dead.”

  “Naw, man. We need to talk. Please you got to understand. No one was supposed to get killed.” Dale was panicked. This was not how the skill position player, crime boss had envisioned his career ending.

  “Oh, we’re gonna talk. You can count on that.” He motioned with the pistol. “Get in. I won’t say it again.”

  Pushing the trunk lid down over the terrified faces of the two brothers, Ricky nodded at Tank. He pulled the car through the bay door a minute later, taking dark side streets, working his way through the city. He knew a place where they could talk. After that, he would do what he had to, for Bobby and Juanita.

  By the time he pulled off Moreland Avenue and cruised down a long hill to the rear of the old Chestnut Hill Cemetery, the night was waning. Heavy woods surrounded the narrow driveway leading to the oldest section, furthest away from the entrance. Crumbled gravestones poked up through the leaves and pine straw, some dating to the Civil War. It was an eerie place unless you had business there, and it was the kind of place where most of the business conducted was highly illegal. Ricky Sanchez had business.

  Unlocking the Camaro’s trunk, Ricky Sanchez stepped back from the car. Pocketing the keys with his left hand, he kept the Walther pointed at the trunk lid.

  “Get out.” He waited, alert to any sudden movements the two brothers might make in exiting the car. There were no sudden movements. There were no movements at all.

  “Get out!” Ricky raised his voice, but there was still no movement.

  Taking a step forward he lowered the pistol, pointed it at the trunk lid and said, “Get out, or I’ll start puttin’ holes in that trunk with this gun.”

  “We get out, you gonna shoot us anyway.” The voice was muffled by the trunk lid, but he recognized it as Darren’s, the older brother.

  “Well, you might be right about that,” Ricky said with a harsh laugh. “But I might not. At least you’ll have some kind of chance…more than my brother had when you shot him in the back.” He waited, watching the back of the car. An owl hooted nearby in a tree.

  “Where we at?” asked the muffled voice from the car.

  “Place I know. Place where we can talk.” He added somewhat exasperated. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll just shoot you in the trunk if that’s what you want.”

  The trunk lid edged up slowly. “Don’t shoot.”

  “I won’t, yet.” He watched the trunk move up slowly and added, “If I do depends on what we talk about.”

  “You got to believe me. I never meant for no one to get killed.” Dale stepped out first while Darren struggled to find a way to throw his legs out of the car still manacled to his brother.

  “Shut up Dale.” Darren pulled himself out almost falling to the ground and pulling Dale down with him.

  “So it was you.” Ricky looked hard at Dale over the pistol. “You killed Bobby.”

  Standing up straight, Dale turned his head to face Ricky. “I told you. It was an accident. He tried to stop us robbin’ the girl, didn’t like the way she was bein’ treated. He got in the way and…it just happened quick, you know. Quick, that’s all I know, anyway.”

  Breathing deeply, he tried to calm himself as he looked at the man who had killed his brother. Ricky Sanchez managed to ask the question that remained without pulling the trigger on the Walther. “Where’s Juanita?”

  “Who?” Dale’s face was truly puzzled.

  Darren spoke up. “Juanita. The girl.” His head bobbed up and down, his mind whirring at a frantic speed trying to find a way out. “Yeah, we know about the girl.”

  “Know about her?” The pistol moved slightly to the left pointing at Darren now. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “We know…I mean what happened to her.” Darren was going rapid fire like a machine gun spitting out bullets as fast as he could. It was the only defense they had, and he knew it. “She’s alive, man. She’s alive.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s with some redneck boys. They takin’ her down south.”

  “You start talkin’ now. Tell me where she is, or we’re back to Plan A and I kill you both and leave you for the possums and crows.”

  “Look…” Darren took a deep breath. Their future rested on what he would say next. “We know where she’s goin’. You want your brother’s girlfriend to be safe, so do we. We didn’t mean for none of this to happen.”

  “His fiancé.”

  “What?”

  “His fiancé. They were gonna be married. He was gonna play ball at Georgia Southern. All that’s gone now.” He moved his extended arm pointing the pistol back at Dale, who only stared at the ground as if resigned to what was about to happen. “You took it from him.”

  “Right, right. His fiancé,” Darren said, talking fast trying to defuse the situation. “Look we’ll tell. We’ll do the time, whatever you want, but it’s got to be to the police.”

  “And if I say, no. You tell me, now. What about that?”

  “Then…” Darren took a final deep breath hoping that it would not be his last. “Then you do what you gotta do. You won’t never see the girl again.” He looked into the Walther’s bore, Ricky’s eyes hard and staring over the sights. “You let us tell the police. We go to jail. You get your brothers girlfr…fiancé back.” Darren lifted his shoulders in an appeal to Ricky’s common sense. “C’mon man. It’s a good deal. You know it is.”

  In the shade of the cemetery’s woods, Ricky Sanchez looked up through the trees to the sky. The sun just rising over the horizon was throwing long shadows across the open space of the driveway. Birds were beginning to wake and chatter their morning calls. A possum scurried through the brush. The quiet, rustic scene was unwor
ldly, hidden in away in the midst of one of the city’s roughest sections.

  Ricky leaned against a tree, thinking. It was the best thing that ever happened to Darren and Dale Tuxton, although they were not aware of their good fortune at the time. More than almost anything, he wanted these two motherfuckers to beg for their lives before he put a bullet between their eyes. He had loved Bobby. Everybody loved Bobby. Juanita loved Bobby…Juanita Lopez saved their lives, or the thought of her, at least.

  Ricky took out his cell phone. Searching online, he found the number he wanted and pressed the numbers.

  ****

  “Atlanta Homicide.”

  “Yeah… I want to talk to that detective handling the shooting of Bobby Sanchez.”

  “Sanchez?” Gary Poncinelli waved Andy Barnes over to his desk. “Roberto Sanchez?”

  “Yeah, Roberto…Bobby Sanchez.”

  “That would be Sergeant Barnes. Hang on I’ll get him.”

  Andy picked up the. “Sergeant Barnes. What can I do for you?”

  “Yeah…well, I’ve got the motherfuckers that killed Bobby Sanchez.”

  “You do? Where?” Andy pulled a pen from his pocket.

  “I’ll bring them to you. They know about the girl too.”

  “The girl?” Andy acted dumb, not knowing who was on the phone with him.

  “Yeah, the girl. Juanita Lopez she was gonna be my sister in law.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Ricky Sanchez. Ricardo…Bobby’s brother.”

  “Ricardo Sanchez…” Andy looked at Ponce, who was noting the name and already on his computer running a 10-29, wanted check on Ricky. “So Ricardo, where are you. We’ll come to you.”

  “No. I’m bringing them to you. Meet me out front of APD headquarters in thirty minutes. I’ll be in a blue Camaro.” Pausing before he disconnected, Ricky added, “You can have me too. I know you’re checking, but I’m not wanted, at least now. But I took these boys and locked them up in my trunk so…well you might want me too. Doesn’t matter. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” The call disconnected.

  True to his word, Ricky Sanchez pulled up in front of Atlanta police headquarters thirty minutes later. After taking the keys from Ricky and opening the car’s trunk, they stood face to face with the killer of Bobby Sanchez. As always, the evil deed did not seem to fit the frightened young man that stood before them. Barnes and Poncinelli had been around long enough to know that appearances were deceiving. The most terrible crimes could be perpetrated by the sweetest young faces.

  After another three hours of separate interrogation, they had pieced together the events leading to the murder of Bobby Sanchez and the abduction of Juanita Lopez along with the bonus of unraveling the murders of Samuel and Steven Crane, star linemen on their high school football team.

  Most importantly, they had their first real lead on the one surviving victim of the crime spree. Juanita Lopez had been abducted and was being transported to somewhere in south Georgia. Andy had work to do, but first he made a visit to Ricky Sanchez, who had waited patiently in another interrogation room throughout the long day.

  “Got some good news and some bad news, Ricky.” Andy walked into the room and sat down across the small table from Sanchez.

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Good news is you were right. You’re not wanted.” Sanchez nodded, waiting for the bad news. “Bad news is that the little Walther you carry is staying with us.” He looked at the young man knowing that threats would not work with him. “I’ll give it to you plain. You could go down for carrying the pistol, no permit and all, not too big a deal for a man of your experience. You could also go down for kidnapping, attempted murder and a number of other assorted felonies.” He gave a nod of understanding to the young man. “You could and you still might, but it seems like the Tuxton brothers don’t want much to do with you anymore. They seem to be very content with whatever prison facility the Department of Corrections has in mind for them.” He smiled. “You’re free to go.”

  Standing, Ricky looked at Barnes. “You let me know, right? Let me know what you find out, about Juanita. Bring her back, ok? Bobby loved her. She’s all we got left of him.”

  Andy pulled out a card. “I’ll let you know.” He handed the card over. “We are going to do everything we can to bring her back. You call me if you find out anything that can help, but call me first before you commit another felony.”

  Ricky nodded and walked out. Andy went to his office to make a call. The case had just moved beyond a straight homicide.

  33. Afraid of the Answer

  Rocking against the girl cuffed beside her as the truck came to a halt, Juanita Lopez dared to open her eyes. Busy opening the rear door with assistance from the outside, the two guards were preoccupied, not paying attention to the girls for the moment. Looking around the interior of the cargo space Juanita noted that the others were in various stages of consciousness.

  The loud clatter of the truck’s steel sectional door rolling up caused her to turn her head. She turned it back again, squinting, blinded by the bright morning sunlight outside.

  “Up now. Wake up!” The redneck guard with the southern accent stood between the rows of girls. “C’mon,” he said, nudging the foot of one of the girls manacled across from Juanita with his boot. “Up!”

  Bleary eyed, trying to understand what was happening, the girl struggled to find a way to stand forcing those chained on each side to move with her. Unsteady, stumbling and stiff from the drugs and being cuffed together, the girls made their way, single file to the rear door. As they reached it, a man standing outside unlocked the manacles on their legs, one by one, so that they could climb down to the bumper and then to the ground.

  Huddled together at the rear of the truck, the girls’ state of mind was a mixture of sobbing confusion and terror. Some had no recollection of what had happened to them, only that they were not anywhere they ever expected to be with people they didn’t know and men who were harsh and menacing. A few remembered some of what had happened and knew that they had been kidnapped but could not remember all of the circumstances of their abduction. Only Juanita had a full memory of the events that had taken her from the rear of her parents’ restaurant to this place, a clearing in the midst of deep woods.

  Fighting back the tears, she forced the thought of Bobby lying in a pool of blood to the back of her mind, pushing it down, under cover, where she could pull it out later and grieve. For now, she had to understand what was happening and survive. That was the key, the important thing. Survive.

  Except for a large shed and two camper trailers, the clearing in the woods was empty. The shed had double doors like a barn. The camper trailers, one large, and one not so large, were parked to one side near the woods. A small group of women stood in front of the shed. The surrounding forest was deep and thick, Spanish moss hanging in heavy folds from the trees. A large, dark stream flowed in between the trees behind the shed.

  “You.” One of the guards spoke to the women.

  Juanita saw that there were four guards. Two appeared to be Americans, speaking the few commands they gave with a southern accent. The other two looked and sounded Hispanic.

  “You,” the guard said again pointing at a woman standing by the shed, the other women standing in a circle around her. She had the appearance of a mother hen surrounded by her chicks. “Come here.”

  The woman walked steadily to the guards and the trembling group of girls by the truck.

  “You’re Sonya, right?”

  The woman nodded.

  “You know what to do, right?”

  She nodded again and said, “I know I’m supposed to get these girls cleaned up and fed.” She tilted her head towards Juanita and the other captives. “Keep them safe.” Her eyes stared darkly at the man.

  He smiled. “That’s right, girl. You get them cleaned up and fed…and keep them safe.” With a jerk of his head, he motioned to the other three guards who began prodding and herding the girl
s towards the shed.

  “Bandy,” she said turning to the women still gathered in front of the shed. “Get the hose and run some water into the trough in the shed and get out the soap and towels.” Waiting until the pale girl moved away from the group, she looked at the others and said, “You others go fix up some food.” They stood looking at her as if each was afraid to make the first move. “Go!” The girls hurried into the shed.

  The redneck guard who seemed to be in charge pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Taking one key off the ring, he turned to Sonya. “Here.” He held the key out. “This is for you. Don’t lose it.”

  Extending her hand, Sonya nodded. “I won’t.”

  “Good. We’ll be watching.”

  The shed door was thrown open, and the girls were herded inside. At the rear was a galvanized steel trough of the kind that might be used to water livestock. Dragging a heavy hose, the pale girl, Bandy, began filling the trough with cold water, and went to retrieve soap and towels from a shelf on one side of the shed as the water slowly rose in the long tub.

  Eyeing their surroundings, Juanita saw two rows of cots covered in sheets lined up in the middle of the space, barracks style. Two portable toilets of the type used in hospitals for convalescing patients were placed against one wall. A camp stove and a small table sat along the opposite wall. A group of women was huddled around the stove, opening bags and putting hotdogs in water to boil.

  Juanita started to speak. “What…”

  A sharp thump in her back caused her to bite off her words and turn. Sonya stood looking at her somberly moving her head side to side silently in a warning. “Don’t make trouble,” she whispered, eyeing the guards nervously. “You’ll know soon enough. Right now, hush.” She turned and walked away, helping Bandy with her armload of towels.

  Understanding the warning, but not satisfied, Juanita mouthed the words under her breath. “What the hell is going on?” She was not at all sure she wanted an answer.

  34. We Have Something

  Walking back to her office in the courthouse basement, Sharon felt the old excitement. She had missed it.